Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The National IPA Challenge hit the fast forward button and released the final results of the competition today (Monday). Sadly, the last New Mexico entry, Canteen’s Hop Baller, did not make it to the medal stand, ending a four-year run of local IPAs claiming the title.

Trickster’s Brewing’s JuiceBox IPA beat Hop Baller in the Bracket 3 championship qualifier, and then went on to take home the gold medal as the top IPA of 2018. Though the name may sound like it’s of the hazy New England-style, it is an old-fashioned West Coast-style hop bomb. Trickster’s is located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, so the next time you find yourself crossing the panhandle on Interstate 90, well, now you have a place to visit for a pint.

This Saturday, the Los Alamos Ski Club is hosting its 70th (!) annual Skiesta festival at Pajarito Mountain, just outside of Los Alamos. Given the extremely dry winter that’s wrapping up, the notion of a festival celebrating skiing may elicit a sigh or a yawn, but rest assured the show will go on! There will be skiing and snowboarding, of course, as well as:

Food from the cafeteria.

The band Escape on a Horse (alt-country/Americana), playing from 2 to 5 p.m.

Breweries that will be attending and plying their wares include Bathtub Row, Blue Corn, Rowley Farmhouse Ales, Santa Fe, and Second Street. We were told that Taos Mesa had to bail out at the last minute, which was too late to change the event poster above. At my request, Stoutmeister asked the breweries for their beer lists. The theme clearly seems to be more malt-forward than hop-forward to fit the colder conditions, plus a few Irish-style beers for St. Patrick’s Day. If any other breweries send their lists, we will update this post.

Has it really been a year since the Crew first plowed through the beers at Steel Bender?

The good folks at Steel Bender Brewyard are fond of pointing out the fact that they never technically had a grand opening last year. To make up for it, they are stretching out the one-year anniversary of Los Ranchos’ brewpub over four days this week.

Here is the lowdown of what is happening on each day.

Thursday

The actual anniversary date features the release of Ingenio, which is a version of the Village Wit with brett, aged in tequila barrels. Bottles will be for sale. There will be music from Lenin & McCarthy from 5 to 8 p.m. There will also be a cask of the Village Innuendo with brett and hibiscus that will be tapped at 4 p.m.

Friday

Steel Can Stout, a collaboration with Canteen, will be back on tap. There will also be a cask with anise added that will be tapped at noon. The Gershom Brothers will provide the music from 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday

It’s a double celebration with St. Patrick’s Day (we’ll cover all the other brewery events for the holiday in The Week Ahead in Beer on Wednesday). Bottles of Bullet’s Reserve will be available. They took the Blue Bullet Stout, added brett, and aged it in red wine barrels for the past year. There will also be a cask of Blue Bullet with brett and boysenberry that has also been aged for a year. It will be tapped at noon. St. Patrick’s Day food items will include reuben egg rolls, lamb stew, and of course corned beef and cabbage with potatoes. Pawn Drive will provide the music from 6 to 8 p.m.

Sunday

Starting at noon, head out to the patio for a special re-release of the brewery’s past wild and sour ales. The Goose is Loose, The Village Tart, Ich Bin Ein, and Oh G’s will all be available, along with the current sour offering, Raspberry Dynamite. The brett-infused beers available will include Yogi Beera, Out to Pasture Ale, and the return of Who’s Brett IPA. Spankey Lee will provide the music from 1 to 3 p.m. There will also be a special cheese board selection from M’Tucci’s Market.

Add it all up and Steel Bender is throwing quite the celebration. For further details, check their Facebook page, or just head on over for whichever day (or days) look like the best bets.

This rendering should give everyone a good idea of what Ex Novo Brewing will look like in Corrales.

A big Northwest brewery is coming to a small Southwest town. Ex Novo Brewing of Portland, Oregon, will open a new location in Corrales, which happens to be the hometown of its owner, Joel Gregory.

Joel and I sat down over lunch and brews at Steel Bender a while back. He just got the green light on financing this week, meaning the project is now going ahead in full.

“We’re doing it in phases,” Joel said. “Phase One is going to be a 10,000-square-foot production brewery. There’s going to be a little place that’s like a coffee shop, a little bitty building that we’re going to use as a tasting room. We’ll have a lot of outdoor seating, not a ton of seats inside. That’s Phase One.

“Then, after we get off the ground here and see what’s the market like, Phase Two will include more brewery space, another few thousand square feet in the brewery, and then like a full pub with a giant beer garden, and a barn for barrel aging and events.”

The brewery will be located in the heart of Corrales, specifically at 4895 Corrales Road, just a block north of the Corrales Bistro Brewery (which no longer makes its own beer). Joel founded Ex Novo almost four years ago, and the brewery has made a name for itself in the extremely packed Portland scene. Expanding the operation in Oregon, though, was proving to be more than a bit of a challenge. That led Joel to cast an eye towards his hometown.

“It’s a big, two-part thing,” Joel said. “I’m from here. I’ve been in Portland for 10 years this summer. I love it up there, I really do, but it’s a long way from family and I really like the direction that Albuquerque in general is headed, both in the beer scene and in general. I happen to know a lot of cool people that I grew up with that are part of that movement to continue making Albuquerque awesome.”

Another view of the production side of the future Ex Novo.

Physical space in Portland is at a premium, at least when it comes to expanding a brewing operation. Joel said that the popular Great Notion Brewing recently took over one of the last available buildings to increase its production.

“Portland is great, but there’s only so much you can do that’s awesome,” he added. “In a place like that, most things have been done before. My wife and I have looked for ways to come back here. The brewery is still in its toddler phase, it’s about three-and-a-half years old now.

“About a year ago, it really dawned on me that it would be possible since we’re at capacity. Do we expand in Portland? Look for more production space or try for something out of town? To be able to come home and to bring things that I’ve learned, what I’ve experienced, and the brand that we’ve built back with us and relocating here full-time, is kind of like a dream.”

Joel has spent enough time around the Albuquerque beer scene to know that simply copying and pasting what works in Oregon will not work here.

“It’s a great way to come home, not leaving something behind or sell it off or anything, we’re going to continue on what we’re doing,” he said. “It won’t be exactly like Portland, it’s a different town. Some things will be the same, some things will be unique to the Albuquerque area. I’ve been dreaming about it for a couple years what it would be like to do something here. It kept coming back to being from Corrales and spending most of my upbringing in the valley.”

Incorporating the outdoors into the brewery was something that appealed to Joel. He said the new Ex Novo will be built around its patio/beer garden, rather than adding that to a building down the road.

“Obviously Albuquerque has got so much great outdoor experiences to see day-to-day, whether it’s just abundant sunshine or the valley where things grow and it’s beautiful,” Joel said. “I think more breweries should focus on that and bring people into that. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it in the valley somewhere. It’s going to have an oversized lot where people can come (hang out). We’re going to focus on the outdoor aspect of it. Drinking beers outside, you can have the kids along, let them run around and play, not stress out. It’s awesome, I’ve experienced that in some places, but not in Portland, it doesn’t have the space.”

Ex Novo owner Joel Gregory is bringing his brewery to his hometown of Corrales.

Joel said his family here, particularly his father and sister, helped him find the right location in Corrales. That site was formerly occupied by the Rancho de Corrales, which burned down in 2012. The original building was built in the 1800s and was later the rather infamous Territorial Bar from 1972 to 1987.

“That’s perfect, there’s nothing else, it’s a blank slate, we get to build something,” Joel said. “That’s always been a dream. When you start a new brewery you always end up in a warehouse somewhere. We get to build something and design it. Anyone that’s been in this business (knows), to not have to retrofit, but to build it from the ground up, that’s also a lot of pressure. That’s the gist of it.”

Joel said he has been friends with Bosque Brewing co-owner Jotham Michnovicz long before that brewery started. While we were at Steel Bender, head brewer Bob Haggerty also stopped by to say hello, having met Joel in the past. Those connections will help Ex Novo not only get off the ground here, but help Joel and his staff understand what New Mexicans expect from a craft brewery.

“Way before I thought about opening anything here, it’s good to see what makes different methods work,” he said. “Albuquerque is super unique. I am looking forward to seeing how it changes in the next five years, how it evolves.”

Ex Novo produces a wide range of beers, from Eliot IPA to The Most Interesting Lager in the World to Damon Stoutamire (truly, Bear Down).

“I would say if there’s anything we love to do it’s bringing balanced and drinkable, a lot of session beers,” Joel said. “Our IPAs tend to be less on the bitter side, more on the balanced side. But we do make 13-percent (ABV) imperial stouts.”

Yeah, Joel brought the Crew a box of beers. That Nevemore Barleywine tucked in there was excellent. Quaker Shaker was another favorite, along with the New England-style IPA.

Ex Novo will hire a new staff for the Corrales location, rather than simply import folks from Portland.

“We’ll be hiring a head brewer to run the day-to-day in Corrales,” Joel said. “My current head brewer is going to be elevated to director of brewing operations. He’ll be the boss of this head brewer and the head brewer in Portland. He’ll make sure consistency is being maintained. He’ll be living in Portland, but coming down here quite often.”

The setup will be similar to what Ponderosa Brewing has, but Joel said his Corrales brewer will have more freedom, especially with the setup that he or she will have inside the brewery.

“We’re going to have a 20-barrel brewhouse and a 5-barrel brewhouse,” Joel said. “Obviously the 20-barrel will be geared toward production and packaging of our core beers. The 5-barrel will be the pub-only reserve stuff. We’re going to do more R&D, yeast propagation, all the things you want to have. Sometimes it’s a crazy beer, but sometimes it’s mild. Those might not sell that well, either. It’s important to not be constrained having 20 to 60 barrels of it.”

The first two beers that figure to be brewed and packaged here will be the aforementioned Eliot and Mexican-style lager.

“A couple core brands, our Mexican lager in six-packs, and our IPA, Elliot, we’ll probably jump right into those,” Joel said. “First year, we’re not looking at crazy numbers, maybe 2,500 barrels, something like that would be a fine target. We’ll have to feel the market out and the demands for the stuff we have. I think those two beers, obviously the IPA, I think it’s one of the better ones in Oregon in package, but we’ve got to come strong with the IPA game here.”

There will also be a lot of seasonal and specialty brews coming out of the smaller brewhouse that will be available on tap.

“We’ll be doing the cool stuff and doing the seasonal stuff with labels, keeping things fresh and interesting,” Joel said. “We’ve been dabbling in the New England IPA category. I think we did the right thing. We’ve been brewing it for a year. We don’t want to do it too frequently. We’re trying to figure out what we like about it. There’s a lot of examples out there right now, but not all of them are good. We just released our first batch in cans. We have some kettle sour stuff in cans. We brew up a lot of seasonal stuff. In Portland, we’ll probably release 70 new beers a year. We’ll probably do that here, if not more, with the 5-barrel.”

Joel said he hopes to get some of the specialty beers distributed in kegs to bars and restaurants, rather than only offering up the standards. In Portland, he said, breweries almost never distribute their core bands that way, but instead focus on a constant rotation of new and exciting styles.

“It leaves room for brewers to do more experimental stuff in larger volumes and distribute it more,” he said. “I think that’s really fun for beer people to go to any bar or restaurant and find beers they’ve never had before.”

This shows lots of parking. That is always a good thing.

That Phase Two construction of a barrel-aging room will be important in that regard.

“We’re super into barrel-aged beers,” Joel said. “We want to do a lot of mixed cultures, lots of wild and spontaneous. Just doing the gamut of beers. We haven’t had the space to really do that (in Portland). If we were here, we’d have one of the biggest barrel-aging programs in the state, but up there we don’t have nearly as much space as we’d like to have.”

All of that sounds quite good to us in the Crew. Our bicycle enthusiast members love the idea of someday riding the Bosque trails from Bosque North in Bernalillo, to Ex Novo, to Boxing Bear, to Steel Bender, and beyond. We will keep everyone as up to date as possible on the progress of Ex Novo. Until then, if any of you are traveling up to Portland, make sure to stop in and say hello to a New Mexico native at his brewery.

Three of the four medal-winning beers are currently on tap at Quarter Celtic.

A social media photo crossed our desks on Tuesday of the Quarter Celtic staff happy as can be in the wake of the New York International Beer Competition naming their brewpub the best of the best in New Mexico.

We had never heard of this competition before, so I braved the traffic on San Mateo (I-25 southbound is no longer an option) and headed over to talk to the QC team on Wednesday afternoon. The NYIBC awarded a gold medal to Crimson Lass, silvers to Test Batch #1 IPA and Come to the Dort Side, and a bronze to Mor-Buck IPA, all of which added up to naming QC the best brewery in our state.

“At GABF, I was talking to Tom Hennessey, who used to be our boss, (and) he was just saying that he only enters two competitions a year, GABF and the New York International,” said head brewer/owner Brady McKeown. “He was saying what a great job they do, how professional they are.”

That all led Quarter Celtic to sign up.

“Another interesting thing about this competition was the format,” said assistant brewer/owner David Facey. “Some are BJCP-certified, some are Brewers Association-certified. … The cool thing about this one was the judgment by the buyers and sellers. Stylistically, it may not be 100 percent, but it’s from the people whose job it is to sell beer for a living. They know their product.”

The competition included beers from 14 countries. Many of the American entries were from big breweries across the country, including Blue Point, Brooklyn, DC Brau, Jolly Pumpkin, Magic Hat, Rogue, Samuel Adams, and Saranac. Among neighboring states, Barrio Brewing topped the Arizona list, while Renegade Brewing claimed Colorado.

To achieve victory, Quarter Celtic had to shake up some past category entries for its beers. One notable change was moving Crimson Lass from Irish Red to Scottish.

“We were really pleased with Crimson Lass,” said general manager/owner Ror McKeown. “These guys did a great job of putting that beer where it belonged in the right category.”

“You know how it works,” David added. “They always talk about crafting a beer to a style. What we realized was sometimes you have to craft a style to your beer.”

Getting medals for two of the four QC house beers, Crimson Lass and Mor-Buck, was also important.

“That’s a great point,” Ror said. “You can tell people you made a really great beer (but) you have to come back next year to drink it. (With these) come on in, you can have it any day of the week.”

Congratulations to the Quarter Celtic staff on all their achievements. We look forward to how things turn out at the World Beer Cup in April and in competitions beyond that.

Today (Thursday), Blue Corn Brewery is hosting a collaboration beer dinner with Beneficial Farms CSA of Santa Fe. Beneficial Farms is a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture collaborative, that provides fresh produce to its members, while supporting 30 local New Mexico farms. This particular beer dinner is also very special to our readers because Blue Corn Brewery will be debuting assistant brewer Andy Lane’s first commercially brewed recipe — Andy’s Peaches and Cream Ale.

The recipe comes from one of the first (all-grain) homebrew recipes Lane ever made (circa 2013). Lane said he loved the flavor combination of a cream ale with peaches, and his friends all agreed with his assessment when he brewed it for them around five years ago.

It was one of his favorite beers that he’d made while starting out. So, after being hired on at Blue Corn, and having worked with head brewer Paul Mallory on learning some good solid commercial brewing lessons, the first beer Lane proposed was his Peaches and Cream Ale. After just two homebrew batches, where Lane dialed in the recipe, he impressed upon Mallory that it was ready for the larger system and for the public. Today, you’ll be able to try Lane’s creation, a true labor of love, a testament to this young brewer’s journey, and a stepping stone in his career.

Andy’s Peaches and Cream Ale is a very fruit-forward beer, made with Pilsner, two-row, and honey malt, and no hops to put the peaches up front and center. A great deal of work went into this beer, the peaches in particular. They had to process them, peel them, de-seed them, freeze them, cull them, boil them, and purée them, before finally adding them to the beer. It was labor intensive and time intensive. It took roughly 10-plus hours to get it all in a tank. But, of course Lane feels it will be well worth the effort. Andy said it’s on the sweeter side, perhaps ranging into dessert beer territory, but he’s pleased with his creation nonetheless. From my early taste of the still-fermenting wort, I would say it’s definitely peachy, in a literal sense. I definitely got more peach tea than candy or dessert. And, it weighs in around 6.2-percent ABV. I can’t wait to try it once I get back from San Diego.

All brewers get their start somewhere. Sometimes it happens in the blink of an eye, but sometimes it happens after a long, winding journey, and many guessed-at roads. If you haven’t read my previous articles on Andy Lane, you can certainly ask him about where it all began, where he’s been, and what he wants to do eventually. He’ll be there at the beer dinner, happy to share his hero’s journey with you.

I asked Lane what it meant to him, to be able to now commercially brew a recipe of his own design. He replied, “It’s exciting! I now get to professionally brew one of the first beers that got me into homebrewing. It’s rewarding. It feels like the last step in a long process. But, it also feels like the first step on the road to what I want to do, if that makes sense.”

Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. at Blue Corn Brewery (Southside). The cost is $45 per person. Call (505) 438-1800 to make your reservations.

To the beginning of what I hope is a very fruitful career (no pun intended), raise ‘em up, my friends!

Calling all beer geeks! Many of you have tried, or at least heard of the amazing beer, “Bomb!” from Prairie Artisan Ales (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Maybe some of you haven’t, but that’s OK, too. I’m not calling you out. If you haven’t heard of it, Bomb! is a huge, 13-percent ABV imperial stout aged on chocolate, coffee, vanilla beans, and ancho chile peppers. According to Prairie, “The peppers add just the right amount of heat to complement the intense coffee and chocolate flavors.” For those of you who have had this, you know it’s a big, chewy, complex-yet-pretty-balanced beer.

This Sunday, Rowley Farmhouse Ales is hosting an event at the brewery surrounding this crazy amalgamation of four separate flavorful imperial stouts. It’s not like any beer event I’ve ever been to in New Mexico. It’s called Prairie Bomb! Deconstructed. Is RFA just tapping Bomb!? No sir/ma’am! These mad scientists are messing with the very fabric of creation itself! Well, not exactly.

Other bars and taprooms have hosted similar Bomb! Deconstructed events, tapping all four variants and letting the public blend to their hearts’ content, but this is where the mad science of RFA comes in. According to chef and co-owner Jeff Kaplan, they have the actual recipe straight from Prairie.

Bomb! is made up of a blend of four different imperial stouts with four different flavor components and RFA has a keg of each.

During this event, you’ll get a flight including each deconstructed stout, plus the constructed Bomb! and of course, a beaker, you know, for science! With that flight full of Bombs! (wow, that’s something you can’t say near a TSA agent), you’ll get a chance to blend your Deconstructed Bomb! variants together, and Rowley and Kaplan will take it back to “the lab.” Then, whoever gets closest to the official artisan blend will win a couple of Rowley bottles and achieve supreme beer geek fame for all time.

Now, it wouldn’t be a Rowley event without puppies. That’s right, this, as with many of Rowley Farmhouse Ales events, supports a local nonprofit to help make life better for our furry friends, something very near and dear to the Rowley crew. This event in particular is supporting NM Pets Alive, a local nonprofit life-saving program for at-risk doggos and kitties. They’re will also have some adoptable puppies on-site during the afternoon.

The event is all Sunday afternoon beginning at 11:30 a.m. To more Bomb!-ass beer events for great causes, cheers!

Take the biggest brewery in town, add in some homebrew clubs and a shop, a couple food vendors, and then toss in the most interactive museum in town, and voila, the Science of Beer is back!

Explora Science Center will be hosting this annual event in partnership with Marble Brewery on Friday from 7 to 11 p.m. The Dukes of Ale, Worthogs, and Southwest Grape & Grain will also be on hand to help educate everyone, from the novice to the expert, on all things beer.

Ticktest cost $12 for Explora members and $15 for everyone else. There may still be some available online, with the last 100 going on sale at Explora on Friday morning. The event sold out last year, so get them now if you want to go.

To get a little more detail, I caught up with Marble’s (very busy) off-site events and festival coordinator, Tammy Lovato, on Wednesday night after the Bites & Brews Challenge wrapped up at the Heights taproom.

“We did it for the first time last year, and it was so successful that we decided to do it again this year and do it even bigger and better,” she said. “That’s what Marble does.”

Marble staffers will host a series of special presentations throughout the night. Head brewer John Heine, brewer Jeff Priddy, lab director Stephanie Crownover, and packaging manager Nate Jackson will be among those on hand.

“The talks start at 7:40 and run till 10:20 with small intermissions in between,” Tammy said. “We’re going to list what each brewer is talking about, but it will start with Beer 101. Nate Jackson is going to talk about packaging and how important it is to properly package beer, because people often forget that’s an incredibly important step in people enjoying beer. We’ll have Stephanie talking about yeast, water management, and managing the lab. Then John Heine is going to talk about brettanomyces in the (brewery).”

In addition to Marble, the Dukes of Ale, Worthogs, and Southwest Grape & Grain will be doing live presentations on different aspects in the art and science of homebrewing. Those will include some live experiments and hands-on fun for the crowd.

Marble also will be providing the beer that will be poured at the event, lest anyone go thirsty. After an outcry last year for more beer, the brewery staff will step up.

“This year we have five beer stations instead of three,” Tammy said. “We sell 900 tickets, so we’ve doing five different stations so we can service more people, get people in and out quicker. We’ll have two that are cash-in-hand only. That will hopefully get people through the lines pretty quickly.

“We’ll have three stations that have draft beer. We’re bringing some cool beers like the Caffe Roggenbier that you’re drinking, we’ll be bringing the Doppelator, our cool new hazy, Southwest-style IPA (Desert Fog), we’ll have the Grapefruit Tangerine Gose, so lots of fun specials for people, and then of course our classic styles.”

Bringing cash instead of relying on credit cards is recommended for all stations to keep things flowing. There will also be food on hand courtesy of M’Tucci’s Italian and Malaguena’s Latin Tapas.

The best part of this entire event is how it all helps the museum.

“All of the money from the ticket sales go back to Explora,” Tammy said. “This is their biggest fundraiser for this time of year.”

Go get your beer education this Friday. And for the record, yes, that Caffe Roggenbier that I was drinking was quite good.

The third annual Stout Invitational in Los Alamos was a big hit, for man and beast alike. (Photo by Jason Rutledge)

The third annual Stout Invitational went down this past Saturday at Bathtub Row Brewing in Los Alamos. Something seemed to come up the first two times, so this was the first that I could attend. Stouts aren’t my first choice, but a beer challenge less than a mile from my house? I have to go.

I went to the 4 p.m. slot (the event is divided into three 90-minute sessions). Things were very busy when I got there at 3:45. Despite the chaotic scene, the servers did a great job of giving everyone a tray with the 16 samples. As always with these sorts of events, I started out strong, but things got fuzzy and it became difficult to sort out the good from the great. Most of the stouts in attendance were worthy efforts. A few, such as the barrel-aged monster in spot No. 1 (which we later found was a massive 13-percent ABV!) and the sweet one at No. 5 stood out to me. The four of us at the table split 50/50, two preferring No. 1 and two (including me) selecting No. 5. Several others could have won in my book, but in the end you have to commit to one.

Jason Rutledge of Los Alamos, a member of the board of directors of Bathtub Row, emceed the event, kicking things off and later announcing the winners. For those who haven’t heard, here are the results:

1st place: Three Rivers (beer #7)

2nd place: Rio Bravo (beer #1)

3rd place: Red Door (beer #5)

Kudos to Three Rivers for taking the prize! Their stout was a coconut one, and to be honest, it was not the favorite at our table, but enough people were in the mood for a tropical stout to give it the win. You now have extra motivation to visit them in Farmington if you haven’t yet.

Jason was kind enough to send us a bunch of photos that he took at the event. I’ve included them below mine. He’s a much better photographer, as you can see. He’s also a famous beer photographer. If you’d like to follow him on Instagram, he’s @jrutled.

Jason kicks things off, with general manager Doug Osborn applauding on the side.

Let the judging commence!

A busy day at Bathtub Row.

Yeah, that’s a good way to end the day.

The event was a lot of fun and gave a bunch of people an opportunity to check out Los Alamos. A big round of thanks to all of the people who helped: Jason, Doug Osborn, and the crew at Bathtub Row; John Gozigian and the New Mexico Brewers Guild; the s’mores servers out at the fire pit; and all of the breweries that participated. Here’s to next year’s Invitational!

A certain beer writer will be appearing on a live podcast recording and signing copies of his book tonight at High and Dry Brewing.

Shameless self promotion is not usually my thing, but I felt compelled to share this event. Tonight (Friday) at 7 p.m., High and Dry Brewing will host a live recording of the City on the Edge podcast featuring yours truly. We will be delving into the history of Albuquerque’s brewing scene, which of course I wrote about in Albuquerque Beer: Duke City History on Tap.

City on the Edge focuses on different aspects of local history, politics, culture, and more. Co-host Ty Bannerman, who has written for the Weekly Alibi and numerous other local publications, is a big craft beer fan. He asked me to come on board and chat about the book and how the scene continues to evolve (such as Chama River closing last year). After I am done yapping about the past, High and Dry brewer/owner Andrew Kalemba will hop on to talk about the newest brewery to join our scene.

High and Dry just had a huge opening weekend, with lines down the block from its location at 529 Adams NE, which is just south of Lomas. Many of the brewery’s own beers were wiped out by thirsty first-time customers, so Andrew has been busy cranking out new batches.

I will have a few remaining copies of the book for sale for $20, which I will be signing as well. If you have procrastinated in the past about picking one up, well, this may be your last chance until perhaps ABQ Beer Week. Of course, if you already have a copy and do not have a signature, please bring it by and I will sign it free of charge.

Or you can just swing on by, enjoy a beer at a fresh new brewery, and I figure at some point we will be taking questions from the audience.